


Landlocked

by lankque



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 10:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23849971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lankque/pseuds/lankque
Summary: Ya ever accidentally stab a man to death?
Kudos: 1





	Landlocked

Living on a ship would make my life easier—for one, there wouldn’t be a dead body on the ground right now. I mean, I guess maybe there could be if there were, say, pirates attacking my ship. Maybe in an alternate universe, this guy stormed my ship and I ended up stabbing him through the stomach just like I did an hour ago. Then I would have a dead guy on my ship. This is also assuming that there was only the one guy, as is the case now. I can’t imagine that neither of us wouldn’t have a crew, but this is a fictional scenario, so let’s just say it’s just us two. So, just the one pirate attacking my ship, and I kill him. He’s dead on the ground and I’d probably sit there for an hour just like I’m doing now and watch the blood pool and congeal like cooling jello around his corpse. Then I’d have to kick myself into gear, which I have yet to do. You see, with a ship, you could just toss the body into international waters. Nobody owns these waters, so technically I haven’t committed a crime. Even if the body were discovered, say maybe the guy washed up on some eastern European shore, his body would be way too messed up from years at sea to identify. Ships are neat that way, because you can get away with things like that.

In landlocked Kentucky on a Friday night at two in the morning right outside a twenty-four-hour convenience store, it’s a little harder to get rid of a dead body. I suppose I could say it was self-defense. I mean, to be fair, it was, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t get in trouble. Startling somebody by asking them for a cigarette isn’t really grounds for murder, I wouldn’t think. Running my hands through the guy’s pockets only turned over his wallet and an old lighter that I imagine barely has any fluid left in it. If I hadn’t killed him, the guy probably would have asked for a lighter too, I bet. Not that I have one, I’m not a smoker. It’s like they say, you know: smoking kills. Especially in this case, I guess.

Opening up his wallet left me with five dollars (coincidentally, that’s exactly how much I have right now too), a condom (as if the bastard would have ever gotten the chance to use it), and some ID—not even a driver’s license, just an ID—issued to a “John Franklin Smith” (blue eyes, brown hair, 180 pounds) that hadn’t been renewed since 1974. Looking down at John Franklin Smith, I could indeed tell that he had blue eyes—death is uglier than it is on TV, most people look like they’re ugly sleeping with their mouth all wide and eyes open like they just got spooked—but his hair isn’t brown no more and I can guarantee you he ain’t anywhere near a measly 180 pounds. I ended up pocketing the wallet, not really because I wanted anything from it, but more out of panic than anything.

First thing in my mind’s what I gotta do with this body. Luckily, this rundown bummy convenience store doesn’t make enough money three miles from the nearest interstate (that nobody ever passes through anyway) to have those fancy Forensic Files cameras all around it. We’re a bit blocked off from anybody’s sight by the garbage dumpster that’s definitely seen some better days. The thing reeks and all I can really think is that it probably wouldn’t smell much different with a body in it. Next thing I do is I’m hauling the man by his white trucker shirt, hands slipping and sliding around in his greasy pits, eyeing the dumpster. I’m struggling though—that “180 pounds” is really getting to me and I’m not really the strongest guy ‘round here neither. I might not be the smartest either, but I’m smart enough to know that I can’t just leave this dude lying around where ever Tom, Dick, and Harry can take a gander at him.

I drop the man, not really sure if I did it on purpose or on accident, and cringe at the weird meaty thud his body makes on the asphalt. You know, television really makes it look easy. Carrying a body, I mean. Maybe it’s easier when people are alive, they kinda hold themselves up somewhat so you’re not doing all the work. Dead bodies are just floppy and all the parts just jangle around and make you do all the work. Or, well, I guess that’s what they’re like, but so far that’s been my experience. I huff, wiping the sweat from my forehead and swatting a hand at all the no-see-ums that swarm me like I’m some sorta hunk of meat. You’d really think that they’d go for the dead dude on the ground, but Hell’s empty and all the demons are up here I guess. That’s what my pop always told me, anyway.

I look down at my sweat-drenched wifebeater and realize that I’ve gotta get rid of that too, now, ‘cause I all up and went and got the man’s blood all over me. That’s fantastic, seriously, that’s just superb. If I had a car, maybe this would be easier, too. I wouldn’t have to worry about hauling this dead body around all night. I mean, hell, I can hardly get the thing close to the dumpster let alone get it anywhere else. Then again, if I had a car, there probably wouldn’t be a dead body. I’d have driven here, gotten my pack of jerky, then headed on home without worrying about getting jumped by some kinda low-life like this dude here. Well, he didn’t jump me, but he spooked me, and he got stabbed, and then he died. I hear a car door slam and over the dumpster I catch a glimpse of some disheveled-looking cop. I mean, hell, his shirt’s untucked. When you ever seen a cop with an untucked shirt? Two in the morning or not, y’all’ve got standards to uphold.

Shit, I duck a few hairs downwards when he lazily glances my direction. He’s not particularly looking for nothing though, it seems. More kind of that lazy, wary glance that folks do when they’re out late and not really looking for trouble. Supposedly glancing around makes criminals and the like less likely to attack you, according to my momma. Which seems kinda like bullshit looking back, since I didn’t catch this dude before I stabbed him. Maybe I wasn’t looking around hard enough. I peek back around the dumpster at the jangly cop, keys and handcuffs and whatever else he’s got all noisily bouncing with each heavy donut-eating step he takes towards the store. I tense, since the store door is way closer to the dumpster than his car was, but I remain unseen.

  
The mass of keys the guy’s got on his belt hooks on the door as he squeezes inside and the ringing of the door’s many alerting bells (since all the employees laze about in the back and don’t watch the front like they should) masks the sound of the key loop hitting the pavement right as the door closes behind the cop. My muscles seize and I’m jumping forward faster than I can think. Really, I’m picking up the keys before I’ve had my first thought and I’m being carried over to the cop car while the policeman figures out what late-night snack he wants. This buckle of keys is massive, loud, and I have no idea how the man doesn’t catch me running like a madman across the parking lot. Seriously, this thing is almost heavier than me—you could beat Jesus with this thing, for real.

I ain’t got a driver’s license, I guess another thing me and the dead man have in common, but I’m backing the vehicle up over by the dumpster and hauling this sack of meat into the backseat like my life depends on it. Though, I mean, it kind of does. I’ll be a dead son of a gun if I ever get caught—which I probably will, but I’m playing this as smart as I can right now. After I’ve slammed the back door and gotten to the driver’s door, I hear footsteps rushing out right after the mass of bells on the store door make it sound like a holiday.

“HEY!”

Now ain’t the time for conversation, so I hop in and I’m immediately gunning the car. Thing about cars is that they accelerate a lot quicker and easier than I ever thought. I’ve never been behind the wheel. I guess this whole night is about new experiences. I go through the ditch of the convenience store which might be the dumbest thing I’ve done, aside from killing a body, and I hear some stuff definitely getting torn off the bottom of the cop car as it drags up the other side of the trench. The cop is screaming his head off and chasing the car like his round little body could keep up with the wheels on this baby, but I see him get tired in the rearview mirror and hunch over his knees like he’s about to barf. I wonder what happens when a crime happens to a cop. I mean, who would they call? The police? They are the police.

The backroads of this state are in bad shape, potholes and cracks all everywhere with crickets and other critters making themselves all homely in them. Every so often I see the carcass of a rabbit or deer or coon on the side of the road while I speed along whatever road I come across. I suppose I could get on the interstate if I really wanted to, but I feel like it’d be way easier to find me then. The good thing ‘bout this vehicle I guess is it’s all old-fashioned. My pop was always on about how the government spends all the taxpayers’ money it got on itself. I suppose the police department doesn’t count as governmental, I think as I thumb the peeling upholstery on the steering wheel. In the right light, it’s a kind of tan color, makes me think of my momma’s favorite purse of hers when I was younger.

Back when we all still used to live together with my bumpy and my mee-maw, my momma still had her purse. It didn’t have all the crinkles and cracks in it back then that it would now. She took real good care of the thing. I never really knew it was weird ‘til some kids in school made fun of me for it, but she’d spend hours just massaging the thing with lotion. Apparently leather bags are supposed to use oil or something, and you’re not really supposed to condition it all that much, but she would and she did. I do gotta say though, that was the smoothest, softest thing I ever did touch. My pop said something about it being the finest grain you’d ever see in a leather bag, too.

I hit a bump and the body in the back tumbles into that awkward part between the front and back seats. I’ve been driving for a few hours with the windows up since it’s getting light and hot out, and I gotta say that this man smells even worse than he used to. I’m guessing that the cooking morning sun isn’t real good for smelling like roses, but it’ll be fine. It always works out. My nose is pretty used to this kinda smell anyways after everything. Driving for a few measly hours with a dead body in the back isn’t much compared to other accidents I’ve had happen and had to figure my way out of.

I focus more on the tan leather steering wheel than the pavement as I drive. Looking back, my pop man really took a liking to the purse as well, for whatever reason, but I suppose he did get it for momma. I think it was supposed to have been some kinda condolences gift from him after she lost the baby—my little brother, it woulda been. Bumpy and mee-maw never liked the bag too much though, I always heard mee-maw and momma arguing about getting rid of it, and soon enough they just suddenly moved out without saying nothing to no one. It was a little weird being in bumpy’s and mee-maw’s house without them in it anymore, but I guess they had their reasons for cuttin’ ties with us.

Pulling into some thick woods, I drive through the foliage, different tires following the same path that I’ve worn down into the earth. I don’t even have to think while my hands direct the steering wheel towards the old watering hole I grew up playing around. I ain’t never told my momma and pop this, since I figured I’d get in trouble for it, but I liked coming down here to see bumpy and mee-maw after they moved out. Momma and pop still hang out around here too, mom’s arms still crossed over her purse as if someone’s still trying to take it from her. I don’t spend too much time with them as I should, but then again, what kid does, I guess.

Getting out of the now-parked car, I haul the bum from the gas station out and into the mud, my sneakers getting caked and sinking whenever I stand still. I throw a glance over to some yellowing sticks that jut out of the mud a few yards from where I’ve parked the cop’s car.

“Hey bumpy, hey mee-maw,” I greet. “Got a visitor for ya.”


End file.
